1-2-3 years in this world
shiny buckle shoes crayon tattoos
cryin to go to school with big brother
sits with little kitten @ the window
facing her future #katyamills
1-2-3 years in this world
shiny buckle shoes crayon tattoos
cryin to go to school with big brother
sits with little kitten @ the window
facing her future #katyamills
i was only 11 in 1984 we
found freedom from our families
in graveyards at night trying tricks on
our boards without wheels then
down the hill the days in town on
wheels. the SMITHS blaring the radiant
sun out of the sky
#katyamills
As a kid I witnessed attributes and played with them.
What would happen when I misbehaved?
life as laboratory I tried lying and
got caught. tried being super
nice to people I don’t know
I tried bullying (after I myself was bullied)
I tried kissing my friends (without their consent)
I tried doing chores without being asked
not doing chores
fighting with fists
reading a book from beginning to end
without stopping
writing a book (age eleven)
If an adult caught me experimenting this way
I risked being earmarked based on my behavior.
This was called judgment and came very easy to them.
I tried it…
I learned not to trust adults
very well
I was a little kid with a heart full of feeling and a head full of up to no good. They let me feel innocent and sent me to bed much too early. Though I hated it and cried and fell asleep to their laughter and songs, I guess you could say I understood.
when you cannot see your family very often, and you see them, in flesh and blood, and get to embrace them, and hug the little ones and ruffle their hair, and look into those innocent eyes, and listen to them tell you stories, and tell them yours, in turn… nothing else compares, no, nothing else compares.
July came along and nobody knew our names
the fireworks were popping
no one could see them
they peppered our ears
we checked the sky
the powder had ignited
the oxygen burned
the paper falling to ground
after dark
we saw the snakes flying
umbrellas of light
the stars draped by the tails
slowly we recognized
who we were
motionless
cars and voices
and our names being called
in the night
cars and voices and our names
being called
motionless
in the night
our names
being called
– KatYa, 2017
latchkey kids. made deaf beneath
of the industry
lacking or without sense or
hungry for relevance
starved of context
I fell into my own fantasy as a keeper of the flame for the children new to fresh books books books. Even fantasies have antagonists and she was a beast, she related well to the kids what with her smiles and false promises. They wanted what she did not have, and fresh matte finish covers became less attractive as the eyes tend to follow the shiny dangler. So what? An asshole relates quite well to other orifices, I imagine, and cannot recuse themselves from toxic flushing, outlyers from anywhere life might thrive. I could only bring a few around to the treasures of reading, but we could proliferate from there. You know, kids tell other kids about a book and soon everyone is reading it. That was the best aspect of my fantasy. Funny how it used to be a reality, back in the Harry Potter days, the Chronicles of Narnia Days. These children were born with google roadmaps of life, and Marvel movies where once we had comic books. Maybe if I pulled the old trading card trick and attached sticks of bubble gum to the spine. Anything to greet them with language and keep them from falling into her world, the common unconscious of not getting-it-ness. Fighting for space. Craving intimacy. Technologically sound. Animals equipped with smart phones doing three quarters their mental work for them. Grades by emojis and trading in texts, subjugated to a subhuman comment thread without end. I don’t even consider her subjects of the same genus as we. I just see elephant seals fumbling about for dying, flopping fish. Mammals with computers and electric outlets. Mall grubbing video grabbers. Android celluloid.
god i feel like im in church all of a sudden. because my spirit is aching. i feel my spirit through
my body in that powerful way like i did on the best sundays in the earliest 1980s, when my family
was a young family, the 4 of us were tight, we had a big old queene anne victorian to tear around
in, a big old lawn wrapping around her, and a little peke-a-poo dog named buttons. its fur was like
the worst case of jerry curls when she was just a pup. my moms radiant joyfulness at having
all of us together singing hymns on sunday, well, it just filled us up, also. but my dad wasnt
really into it. so the kids werent either. so looking back its an aching kind of spirit i felt …